


Strangest Things

by avoidingavoidance



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Black Goo TM, Explicit Bullying/Tormenting, Explicit Sexual Content, Eye Horror, M/M, Possession, jmge 2017, multiple other kinds of horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 00:45:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13065609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avoidingavoidance/pseuds/avoidingavoidance
Summary: Jean never had a lot of friends; he's too brash and loud and seems too arrogant, so most of the other kids in his school avoid him. But at least there's someone, something, he can always count on to be there when he comes home exhausted and feeling lonely. It's always been there, since he could think, and even though he was scared of it at first he's come to find its presence oddly soothing and calming by now.





	Strangest Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fenfyre (Jace)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jace/gifts).



> AHAHAHA HEY FEN GUESS WHAT
> 
> so i’ve been losing my shit from the moment i opened the assignment email, because we had like JUST had a brief conversation on twittr about this prompt. so when i got you, i was both excited and terrified, because i wanted to do this prompt so badly but i wanted to really do it justice, too. i kept thinking about how you said you almost didn’t submit it because you wanted to write it yourself, and tbh a few times i almost chickened out.
> 
> but then i slapped my cheeks and said ‘bruh this is DIRECTLY up our alley, it’s go time,’ and, well. tadaaa :D;;;
> 
> i really, really hope it lives up to your vision, even though it’s totally soaked in my own very strange and wet sense of horror. and hey, even if it doesn’t, you can totally still write it your way! the prompt isn’t dead, this is just one imagining of it, and if nothing else, both our versions can hang out and be spoopy together.
> 
> so yeah. i just want you to know that every time i whined on twittr and you encouraged me, you were helping me keep strong on this. it is both amusing and very touching, because i THINK i played it cool enough that you didn’t know your secret gifter was me, which meant like. you were encouraging me purely out of a wish to see me succeed. and i’m very emotional about that, but i have the expressive range of a dead fish, so you’ll just have to trust me.
> 
> thank you, fen. you’re very nice to me and i don’t really have words to express how much that means to me, so have this instead. hope you like dead things.

The sounds start when Jean’s too young to really understand them.

He hears them at night, the grating of sharp claws dragging along the floorboards under his bed. Scratching, scratching, scratching, waking him up in the pitch black of his bedroom with his frail child heart pounding and his clammy skin soaked in a cold sweat. 

Without really knowing why, Jean cries. 

All he can think to do is scream and flail in his sheets, wailing for his mother, because even though he can’t imagine what might be making the sounds, he knows that he’s not alone, and for some reason the thought _terrifies_ him. More so than anything he’s ever experienced in his brief four years of living.

Almost half a year of searching under his bed and in his closet every night passes before his mother has had enough. Night terrors, she suggests. Night terrors, says the child psychologist. All children see monsters, he says, a placating smile on his face as he ruffles Jean’s unkempt hair.

It’s that day Jean realizes no one believes him.

He may not be old enough yet for school, nor to understand the sounds that plague him, but he’s old enough to understand secrets.

So he swallows his fear. He bites back his sobs. He stares at the ceiling all night, listening to the _scratch scratch scratch_ that lives beneath his bed, knowing that he can never tell anyone about the thing that lives here in the dark, and a cold, angry bitterness begins to grow inside of him.

\--

Jean slams his bedroom door open and drops his book bag on the floor, petulantly crossing his arms and refusing to look up at his mother when she hurries in after him.

“What’s happening at school, sweetheart?” she pleads, her hands reaching for his bony shoulders. “Why are you saying these things?”

“I _told_ you!” He stomps his foot, then whirls around to look at her, all the rage of a seven-year-old boy shining up at her around angry tears. “None of the other kids like me! They make fun of my hair and my clothes. Yesterday Maggie said I’m annoying. I didn’t even _do_ anything to Maggie this time.” He huffs again and glances over at his bed, then decides against it and turns to collapse on top of his closed toybox instead.

Jean’s mother sighs softly, then comes to kneel in front of him, her normally soft expression wrinkled with concern. “Jean, have you said anything to your teachers?”

He scoffs at that. “They don’t care.”

“Of course they do—”

“They don’t! If they cared, they would do something.”

She rests her hands on his arms gently, her thumbs rubbing soothing lines over the worn knit of his hand-me-down uniform sweater. “How can they know if you don’t say anything?”

Jean’s frown deepens. “How can they know anything _else_ they know? Whenever I’m doing something I’m not supposed to, they know like magic. Why is this different?”

His mother doesn’t have an answer for that, and it shows on her face. Her dark eyes fall to Jean’s knees, where a patch covers an old hole from a fall on the playground last year. He needs new ones, but they can’t afford them, and it’s getting harder and harder to hide that from him.

“Do you want me to talk to them?”

“ _No!_ ” Jean stands up suddenly, barely an inch taller than her where she kneels. “If they know I tattled on them, they’ll just make fun of me even more.”

“Then what can I do to help?”

Jean opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes up. He can tell time and read books for fifth graders, and he can do math quicker than anyone in his class, but as smart as he and his mouth are, nothing comes out.

So he does what he always does when someone asks him a question he can’t answer.

He cries.

\--

By the time he’s ten years old, he’s started sleeping through the sounds.

Whatever is down there clawing beneath the floorboards doesn’t like that.

Things get worse.

\--

It starts gradually. The lights flicker in empty rooms, the TV snaps on sometimes in the middle of the night, his toys will move themselves while he’s asleep. Nothing really noticeable at first.

One day, Jean starts finding dark, frizzy hairs in the sink.

He and his mother are both blonde, and she hasn’t had a boyfriend in years.

This continues for a while, where Jean will swallow heavily and brush the hairs out of the sink, doing his best not to think of any of the creepy shit he’s heard girls in his class talking about in hushed whispers. _The Ring_ is just a movie. Bloody Mary isn’t real. Ghosts aren’t real. 

Monsters...

Aren’t real.

He’s telling himself this again one night as he’s struggling to pull those rough black hairs out of the drain, when he hears something shuffle down the hall behind him.

It’s probably his mother.

Some small, terrified part of him knows it isn’t.

He takes a deep breath and glances up at the mirror through his bangs, but he doesn’t see anything. No dead girls, nothing hovering over him, behind him, reaching for him. Just the dark hallway.

When he turns around to leave the bathroom, the door slams shut in his face with so much force it sends him stumbling backward, his ears ringing from the awful sound. The air is so thick with static he can feel his hair starting to stand up, as if someone had rubbed a balloon over it. There’s a strange smell in the air, too, something foreign and chemical that stings Jean’s nose and his mouth as he gasps for breath.

Rather than try to open the door, Jean crouches in the corner of the bathtub and grits his teeth so hard they hurt, his wide eyes burning with tears he refuses to shed, and he stays there until his mother calls for him to get in bed.

The hallway is still dark when he finally opens the door, hissing when the cold handle shocks him. He looks and looks, squinting into the shadows, but he doesn’t see anything.

He never does.

\--

Jean used to be safe so long as he was asleep. He didn’t dream much, but when he did, he barely remembered them when he woke up.

Now he dreams every night, and he hates it, because unconsciousness was the only safe place he had left.

The sounds follow him into his dreams at night. The _scratch scratch scratch_ wriggling into his ringing ears, setting his hair on end, flooding his mind and echoing through every part of him, catching in his throat when he tries to breathe air acrid with dust.

He begs the sounds to leave him alone. When he’s awake, he thinks he’s too old to cry, but when there’s nothing but him and those claws in the darkness, it’s the only thing he can do. Crouched in the pitch, wringing his hands in his sleep shirt and sobbing, he pleads with the void to just let him sleep.

The void hears him. He knows it does.

But all it does is _scratch, scratch, scratch._

\--

Jean has lingering dark circles under his eyes by his thirteenth birthday. His mother thinks it’s genetic, and he’s more than happy to let her believe that. After all, there’s no way he could possibly tell her he still thinks there’s monsters under his bed, and that they haven’t let him sleep peacefully in years.

His pride is going to get him in trouble one day, his mother always tells him, and with the undeserved self-assurance of any thirteen-year-old boy, he refuses to believe it.

\--

Today is the worst day Jean’s had in a long time.

For some reason, the kids in his class decided that the joke today would be to pretend he doesn’t exist. No one speaks to him, no one looks at him, people shove against him as they walk past.

He didn’t think it could get worse than it already was, but the sudden and complete isolation digs deeper into his spirit than the claws beneath his bed ever have.

It won’t last. The jokes never do. Kids get bored, even of cruelty.

Even so, when Jean falls asleep tonight, then blinks his eyes open to complete and oppressive blackness, there’s a twisted prick of relief that settles between his ribs. 

He stands on scrawny, trembling legs and fists his sweaty hands as he glares into the dark, and just like every other night, the sound starts distantly somewhere behind his left ear.

 _Scratch, scratch, scratch._

Today, overwhelmed with anger and pain, Jean whirls to face it, or where he expects it to be. There’s nothing there but shade, but that doesn’t stop him from screaming, “ _Leave me the fuck alone!_ ”

His shrill voice shakes and cracks. It’s been doing that lately. Puberty or something.

The sound echoes, almost as if shaming him with how sad, how pathetic his feeble voice sounds. Even in the muffled echo, though, he can hear his own consuming rage.

The scratching stops.

For a brief moment, so does Jean’s heart.

Everyone else had treated him as though he doesn’t exist. Now this, too?

He stumbles over his loose pajama pants and whips his head around, looking for something, _anything_. “W-what, are you _scared?_ Too scared to fight back? _Coward!_ ” Jean’s clenched fists shake, and his uneven nails dig into his palms. “You’re just like the rest of them!” The silence rings in his ears. Jean’s heart flutters like the beating wings of a frightened bird. “No, you’re _worse._ You’re _pathetic._ Go on and fuck off, then, you weren’t _ever_ as bad as them!”

Silence.

Jean realizes he’s crying and angrily scrubs the tears away from his cheeks. He can’t stop now that he’s started, though, and resisting his loud, hitching sobs is leaving him light-headed and breathless. Too dizzy to stand his ground, Jean sits down heavily, then buries his face in his bent knees and just cries.

_who are they?_

It’s not even a whisper, let alone a voice. Just a breath and an impression of words.

Jean whips around and looks, trying to see anything in the pressing darkness, but just like always, there’s nothing there. There never is.

“W-who’s there?” he shrills, moving to his knees and squinting harder. “Come out, chicken!”

_who are they?_

No matter where he looks, no matter where he stands, that stale breath passes just beneath his left ear, just like the scratching. It’s the same feeling, too, the chill down his spine and the hairs rising on his neck, the itching deep, deep in his ear that makes him want to pull his shoulder up against it.

“What do _you_ care?” Jean scoffs, but it’s shaky and transparent, and that just makes him angrier. “You’re just _night terrors._ You’re nothing. You’re in my head.”

_yes, i am._

_tell me who they are._

Sneering, Jean crosses his arms and turns his head, like that’ll stop the sounds from slithering so close to him.

“You don’t care. I know you don’t.” He gnaws on his lip for a moment, his stubborn expression trembling against more tears. “No one does.”

_i do._

Before Jean can reply or even process that, his alarm shrieks from his nightstand, and he jolts upright in his bed, dripping unnaturally frigid sweat and tears.

\--

The joke doesn’t last, just as predicted. Things continue on, though, until the end of that year when his class graduates, and with all the parents milling around, his classmates try to pretend that they’re all best friends.

It’s infuriating.

He gets sent home early with a split lip and an extremely disappointed mother.

\--

That summer, the nightmares stop. The sounds continue for a while, but in a way that’s quiet and steady, and somehow almost comforting against the silence he surrounds himself with.

He sleeps more than he’s ever slept those few months, and somehow, he feels more alone than he ever has.

\--

When the summer ends, Jean starts high school. With the way district lines are drawn, almost everyone from his old school goes to a different school. 

It’s a chance for him to start fresh. To make a new first impression. To turn over a new leaf.

He doesn’t know how.

Everyone here is new to him. The building is strange and he has to climb too many stairs too many times a day, and the teachers are even more distant than his old ones. He has so many books to carry because his locker is basically located across the galaxy, so his back and his shoulders ache just as badly as his weedy legs.

Even when Jean’s not in a bad mood from soreness and growing pains, he’s closed off and baseline angry. He’s been beaten into an unapproachable, grouchy hunch, a frown on his face at all times.

No one tries to talk to him.

It’s a new year at a new school, a new start, and already Jean knows that no one likes him.

No one ever does.

\--

A month into the new school year, Jean bursts through his bedroom door, then slams it shut before his mother can even finish asking him what the hell happened. She slaps her palm on the wood a few times, demanding answers, demanding to know who raised him in a goddamn barn, but she gives up before too long. 

He got sent home early for fighting. It wasn’t even that serious of a fight. Just some pushing, some harsh words. He doesn’t even remember what it was about.

Without even kicking his shoes off, Jean crams his aching head under a pillow, and the tense anxiety ticking out of his shaking limbs lulls him into an uneasy sleep.

For the first time in months, he isn’t alone.

“Oh my fucking god,” Jean groans, leaning his head back dramatically. “Not this shit again.”

_you’re hurt._

“I am _not._ ” 

_your shoulder._

“Is _fine,_ fuck you very much.” Jean crosses his arms and huffs, glancing around in the pressing darkness and finding nothing, same as always. His shoulder twinges, likely from where he’d been shoved hard against the corner of a locker, but he does his best to ignore it. 

There’s a long silence then, which just irritates Jean more. He taps his foot impatiently, glancing at his watch, loudly moving and acting in all the juvenile ways that drive his mother crazy.

_who are they?_

Jean scrunches his nose up and scoffs, his eyes rolling so hard they just about fall out. “Shut up.”

There’s a rumble in the dark then, low and dangerous, filtering through the dust-choked air and seeping into his skin, and he’s shaking before he can help it.

It’s been a long time since he’s been afraid of this thing, whatever it is.

 _tell me._

“J-just—it’s some jock at school,” Jean stammers, his voice trembling. “He just doesn’t like my face or some shit, I don’t know.”

_are you afraid?_

His face twists into a confused frown. “Of what?”

 _them._

“Of course not.” Jean snorts and sits heavily, crossing his legs under himself. “Nothing I haven’t dealt with before. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

There’s a long, heavy silence then, not even interrupted by the sounds of scratching, nor of breathing. Just thick, musty nothing.

_are you afraid of me?_

Jean frowns at the ground, or lack thereof.

“Of course not,” he repeats, this time a lie. “You don’t even _do_ anything.”

Nothing responds for a long moment. He’s about to stand up and demand to be released, because his homework isn’t gonna do itself, when another sound seeps up from the space beneath him, one he’s never heard before.

A voice, a whisper. Soft, tired, and dusty as the air around him.

“You should be.”

Jean starts awake in his bed, choking on air and coughing hard as he bolts upright.

He smells rain.

His hands don’t stop shaking for hours.

\--

Jean still doesn’t understand how to make friends. He’s never had the chance. 

He compensates for his constant anxiety by being louder and more aggressive, sneering and snorting and bristling at every turn.

As expected, acting like this makes people angry, pushes them away.

Everyone just leaves him alone, just like that time in middle school, but this time it’s not a cruel joke.

The loneliness becomes crippling, and it feeds rage into his ever-growing bitterness.

\--

For the last few weeks, every time Jean comes home, he immediately stomps into his bedroom and slams the door. His mother has given up entirely on scolding him for it. He’s moody, and some part of him always has been, so she chalks it up to extra teenage angst and lets him slam doors.

Today is no different. He storms into his room and slams the door, but this time he hurls his book bag across the room with a choked, frustrated snarl. 

He had hoped that lashing out would settle the anger seething in every shaky muscle, but it doesn’t.

No one talked to him today. Again. His science teacher had to force someone to partner with him, and even then, the guy hadn’t spoken to him once. 

At the end of class, someone patted his lab partner on the back and said, “Sorry you got stuck with the school asshole.”

Jean drops onto his bed and buries his face in his hands, his leg bouncing agitatedly. 

He doesn’t know how to stop his bitterness from showing in every face he makes, in every word he spits. He doesn’t know how to let people close.

His breath shivers out in a hitching, wet sigh. The heels of his hands slip in the tears being crushed from his eyes.

After a moment, very faintly, he hears it again.

 _Scratch, scratch, scratch._

Jean pulls his hands away from his face and stares at the floorboards between his old, worn shoes. It’s always dark under beds, but right now he swears the shadows are reaching further, somehow heavier than usual.

He feels no fear.

This _thing,_ whatever it is, has been here his entire life. It’s the one thing that hasn’t left him, that keeps coming back and seeking him out. It had told him to be afraid of it, but if he lets the fear take this presence from him too, he’ll be left with nothing.

This is all he has.

Moving slowly, carefully, Jean slides off the sheets and kneels, then turns to face his bed, where the shade coming from beneath grows even darker as it spreads across his bent knees.

He knows it’s completely insane. He’s not stupid. This has to be some kind of paranoid delusion at this point. There is something _wrong_ with him, and it’s showing in everything he does. 

Even so, heart pounding, Jean lowers himself onto his stomach on the floor next to his bed and looks.

Either the shadows are too thick for him to see anything, or there’s nothing there. It’s unnaturally dark, though. His blinds are closed, but it’s still bright outside, and these are the kinds of shadows that flicker and dance in the far corners of your vision late at night.

It’s silent, tense and almost anticipatory.

Jean knows this is insane.

He reaches under the bed, and when he feels nothing but the wooden floorboards, he swallows heavily, then pushes himself into the dark.

As the shadows envelop him, surrounding him in musty quiet, Jean’s pulse is racing, but he’s not afraid.

He lowers his ear to the floor, then closes his eyes, and after he’s taken a few deep, centering breaths, he hears it.

 _Scratch, scratch, scratch._

Closer than ever before, a soft, almost soothing rhythm dragged along the underside of the wood.

Jean doesn’t know how long he lies under his bed, wreathed in shadow like a comforting, if dusty, blanket. He doesn’t know how long he listens to those intermittent sounds. All he knows is that this is the most he’s heard them in many, many years, and compared to everything else he deals with every day in the daylight, this is... wonderful. 

When his mother calls him for dinner, the sun has long since gone down, and Jean is reluctant to leave his spot here in the dark.

\--

Jean spends a lot of time under his bed, which he knows must look batshit insane, but it’s not like anyone’s there to stop him. His mother gives him a mile of personal space in every direction, and never barges into his room unannounced, so he feels little to no trepidation about climbing right under his bed when he’s badly in need of company.

Most of the time, the sound is there. Sometimes it’s absent, and those days are fairly disappointing for Jean, although he can’t really explain why.

After a while, he starts responding. He drags his nails along the floorboards too, so quietly that even he barely hears it.

It’s enough, though.

The shadows are always so caring, always pressing in around him and weighing gently on his sore shoulders, and when he starts scratching back, he feels a pulse.

A ripple through the shade, more of an animal perception than anything tangible or comprehensible.

It feels... excited.

He does this for a while, a few days maybe, before the feeling under his nail gets kind of weird and uncomfortable.

Instead, one night he drags the pad of his finger in slow circles along the grain of the floorboard and whispers, “Can you hear me?”

He doesn’t know how, but he knows it can. He knows it’s listening.

He knows it _wants_ to hear him.

Every day, his mother asks him how school was, and at most, he gives her a gruff, “Fine.”

Every day, he crawls under his bed with his monster and tells it everything he can think of, ranting and complaining and whispering his anxieties into the dark, and every day, he feels it responding, reassuring and encouraging.

After a few weeks, he almost feels like it’s getting stronger.

\--

That winter is terrible. The world is cold and dead, and there’s never any sunlight to warm his scrawny bones. 

He ends up with a lot more to tell his monster during those long, dark months, between the loneliness and the isolation and the weight of the frigid air in his lungs.

That Christmas, Jean starts dreaming again.

\--

If he hadn’t been here before, all those years ago, Jean supposes he would be scared.

He recognizes this stale dark, though. He knows that he’s not alone, and rather than cry or scream like he used to, he looks around almost eagerly.

“Are you here?”

His voice echoes slightly, warped as if through water, and for a long time there’s no reply.

 _you’ve gotten tall._

Jean’s heart skips an excited beat. Outwardly, he doesn’t know what to do with his hands or his face, so he crosses his arms and lets his usual grumpy, bored expression fall into place. “Yeah, it blows. None of my shit fits right any more.”

The dark doesn’t respond to that, but he feels... acknowledged. He knows it’s listening.

He knows it sees right through his bristly exterior, right down to his aching bones, down to where he’s still small and scared of the world, but he doesn’t let the facade fall. Instead, he glances around, hoping to see something, some glimpse that might give him a clue about the creature that’s been haunting him all his life.

That night, he doesn’t come away with anything. He doesn’t chase conversation, and neither does it. They just occupy this space together, this dark part of the universe that this thing has carved out for him.

When Jean wakes up, he feels warm, and content for the first time in a long time.

\--

Jean’s beginning to suspect that, in some way, he’s feeding the monster. If he goes too long without talking to it, without spilling his guts to it, he stops dreaming.

So he makes time for it. 

Maybe it’s a bad idea. Maybe he’s being a white guy in a horror movie.

He tells his monster that too, and somehow the shadows seem to ebb and curl in amusement around him. It’s laughing, he thinks. At least, that’s what he feels in the back of his head, in the animal part of his brain. 

It feels good.

\--

“You know,” he huffs, stretched out on his back in the shaded little dream world they share. “This relationship seems very unbalanced.”

_oh?_

“Yeah.” Jean closes his eyes and laces his fingers under his head. “You know everything about me, including things I really wish you didn’t, but I don’t know anything about you.”

It’s a request, as much as Jean can ask for anything around his pride. It filters through the air and settles in pieces around him, and for a long few beats, there is no response. He’s used to his monster being a little slow, but it’s hard not to squirm with impatience.

 _there’s nothing to know._

Jean scoffs at that, then sits up, squinting into the empty space. “That’s bullshit. There has to be _something._ ”

 _i am nothing._

“Okay,” Jean sighs. He leans back on his hands and frowns pensively. “What did you used to be?”

The void ripples around him again, but this time the feeling twists and curls in his stomach, the shaved hairs on the nape of his neck standing on end. The rising dread only gets worse, stinging like sparks in the air, on his tongue, until he hears the pulse of his monster’s thought rumbling through the ground beneath him, shaking it apart like loose earth.

 _ **go away.**_

Jean wakes up then, but it’s the middle of the night, and he can’t quite get his bleary, aching head together.

His monster had kicked him out.

Rejection burns like acid in his throat, and for the rest of the night, Jean can’t sleep, constantly on edge and waiting for the _scratch, scratch, scratch_ that doesn’t come.

He doesn’t dream for a week after that. 

\--

Jean doesn’t really know how to apologize for anything. He guesses that he crossed a line of some sort, but it’s not like he’d meant anything by it. He was just curious. 

The loneliness is starting to weigh him down by the time he dreams again, and even though the feeling of pervasive shadow floods him with overwhelming relief, he can’t stop himself from sneering at it.

“Oh, _now_ you’re talking to me?”

There’s nothing to see, and nothing to hear, but somehow the darkness feels sheepish.

 _i’m sorry._

“Yeah, whatever,” Jean huffs before he can stop himself. He hates the way his tone tastes, and hates that he can’t bring himself to say the words back. His pride is blocking his throat, strangling his words, and he’s starting to feel like his mother might be right.

He sits heavily, and notices that the ground still feels soft and wet, like disturbed soil. It’s so distinct, it even has a smell to it, different from the dust he’s used to. 

It smells like rain, and a little like drowned wood smoke.

 _i had a name once._

Jean raises an eyebrow. He wants to ask, but he remembers how upset his monster had been the last time, and how terrible it had felt to be rebuked so thoroughly. Instead, he bites his chapped lip and grunts.

His monster knows him, though. It sees through him, sees past all his angry walls, and he doesn’t even really have to voice the question for it to echo in the space around him.

A long time goes by. Maybe most of the night. Jean spends the time in silence, feeling awkward and sensing his monster’s own awkwardness in return. 

Just when he’s losing his grip on this place, as his body starts shifting toward wakefulness, his monster breaks the quiet.

 _marco._

Jean wakes up before he can reply, his dry lips already forming the name just to see how it feels.

Somehow, it fits.

\--

Puberty hits Jean like a truck.

His joints are in constant pain, his skin is an absolute disaster, and his mood swings on a dime with the sudden force of a summer storm. He snaps at everyone, and things get tense at school more and more often. 

All this anger and pain, all the feeling like no one understands him gives him a _lot_ to talk to Marco about. A lot to feed his monster, he supposes. Marco’s definitely getting stronger. His voice, once just a whisper of a thought in the dry air, becomes clearer with each passing day. The woody soil smell of his dark dream grows more distinct, more tangible, as if Jean was digging his own fingers into black forest dirt.

One night, when Jean’s brushing his teeth and staring vacantly at the corner of the bathroom mirror, he swears he sees something flit past the open door behind him, moving down the dark hallway toward the living room.

An old, terrible memory stirs. Jean’s heart beats a little faster. His fingers tighten on the edge of the sink.

Moving carefully, quietly, Jean takes a step back and leans out into the hallway, staring into the living room where his mother has fallen asleep in front of the TV again.

The shadows don’t move.

Jean smells rain.

\--

At the start of his senior year, a new guy shows up at school, and somehow, he’s an even bigger asshole than Jean. Everyone knows it. He’s bigoted and angry, lashing out at anyone who stares too long for anything he can dig his nails into.

They do not get along.

Jean is still pathetically skinny, trying desperately to grow into his frame and failing at every turn. The new guy is fucking enormous, though, built like a brick wall and about as smart as one.

Unfortunately, this does not stop Jean from trying to fight him when the guy calls him an unpleasant homophobic slur one too many times.

Both of them end up suspended for a few days. Once Jean explains the situation to his mother, struggling to get the words out around his battered pride, her disappointed expression softens in understanding. 

He’s not in trouble, and he has a few days off, but even after the long ride home, Jean hasn’t stopped shaking. His nose and lip are still bleeding slightly when he storms into his room, his eyes burning with angry tears, his knuckles bruised and stinging from colliding with that dumb oaf’s concrete face. 

It’s midday now, bright sunlight shining through his blinds in long stripes across the floor. At first, he drops onto the edge of his bed, glaring at his threadbare area rug and clutching tissues to his nose. The agitation doesn’t settle, though, so Jean slides heavily onto the floor, his free fingers searching under the bed for those cool, comforting shadows.

He’s expecting to hear the scratching. He wants to hear it, so that he can crawl under his bed and vent, so he can tell Marco about how hard he’d fought.

Instead, whispers, just as real as they seem when he’s dreaming.

_come here, jean._

_sleep._

Jean listens.

\--

Marco is _furious._

Jean’s felt thunder in the dark, whenever Marco is upset or worried, but he’s never felt _this_ before. Even though it’s not aimed at him, it still leaves him trembling. 

Exhausted from stress and adrenaline, Jean curls up on the damp floor, his arms wrapped around his bony knees. He guesses he must look pretty tiny and pathetic, because before long he can feel the rage dissipating as Marco calms down. The air settles again into the heavy, comforting shade he’s familiar with, pressing against him and soothing him into relaxing too.

“You ever deal with anything like that, Marco?” Jean asks a while later, tired and drained even in his own dream.

He waits for Marco to do whatever it is he does during these silences. Composing his answer, remembering words, gathering the energy to reply. The quiet is contemplative, and it doesn’t make Jean anxious or impatient anymore. He knows Marco’s just thinking.

 _yes._

Jean sighs. 

“Fucking sucks.”

 _sure does._

Snorting quietly, then regretting it instantly when pain rockets through his bashed-up nose, Jean tilts his head back with a groan, letting Marco surround him. His hands fall to the ground on either side of him, where he sinks his fingers into the cool dirt.

Maybe it’s the exhaustion, or maybe his brains are a little more rattled than he thought. Maybe he’s just losing it.

Jean swears he feels something digging through the soil.

His breath stutters, and the movement hesitates. It starts up again, though, tentative and almost shy. Jean holds his breath, carefully keeping still, afraid that if he moves, this will end without him ever finding out what it was.

Something comes up from under the earth beside his palm. 

Jean’s not exactly familiar with the way another person’s hand would feel on his, at least not without violent intent fueling them. People aren’t lining up to hold his hand, after all.

The fingers that brush against his forearm are cold and clammy. 

They move slowly, cautious in their exploration of this new territory. They drag along his wrist, down onto the back of his hand, before they come to rest over the bruises on his knuckles. The cool is soothing.

Before Jean can glance down and see, his eyes flutter open to the warm honey orange of late evening sunlight in slats across his ceiling, and disappointment washes over him in a crushing wave.

When he sits up and looks at his hands, searching for some trace of that cool touch, he notices he has black dirt under his nails.

\--

Over the course of his suspension, Jean has _way_ too much time alone for gross introspection, and he comes to a few alarming conclusions.

The first is that Marco is no longer confined to the shadows under his bed.

It’s still hard to catch him, but if Jean relaxes and lets his mind wander, sometimes he can see movement out of the very corner of his eye. A shadow dancing across a wall, a figure standing just out of reach, a flurry of movement in the hallway.

Jean wants desperately to actually _see_ him, but if he moves his head or his gaze, that presence fades out of existence, leaving a strangely empty space in its wake.

It has to be Marco. He’s felt him getting stronger, willingly letting him feed on all his fear and anxiety. Maybe if he keeps feeding him, he’ll grow strong enough to linger in Jean’s field of vision, at least long enough to see what kind of face he has. If any. Either way, Jean’s willing to bet he’s cute.

Along that line of thought, the second conclusion Jean comes to is that, somewhere along the line, he seems to have developed something like a _crush_ on the monster under his bed.

It’s not as awkward or nerve-wracking as any of the other crushes he’s had. He wonders if knowing that Marco understands him has something to do with that. Just thinking about it is enough to set his heart fluttering, but not in the pounding anxiety way. It’s a warm feeling, as soothing as the shadows Marco lives in.

He may or may not jerk off in the shower thinking about the briefest touch of that cool hand. Several times.

It’s probably fucked up.

Jean really hopes Marco can’t see that in him too.

\--

The suspension didn’t teach the other guy anything at all, except that he needs to be more careful where he expresses his vileness. 

Things get worse.

Much worse.

\--

Every time Jean comes home with a new bruise, a new ache, he brings home more hurt to feed Marco. Jean hasn’t lost his mistrust for adults, so he doesn’t even consider telling his teachers about it. He’s pretty convinced they wouldn’t care, anyway.

Marco grows angrier and angrier by the day, more adamant about protectively wrapping Jean up in shadow and whispering sweet comfort and reassurance to him.

Sometimes, when he’s particularly agitated, Marco forgets his words again and goes back to scratching.

By now, the sound is far from frightening.

\--

One day, Jean comes home more haunted than he’s ever been in his life.

When he moves into his room, he doesn’t slam his door. He doesn’t throw his book bag. He doesn’t even move.

He feels light-headed. His heart is still hammering in his chest, still drowning in terror. His mother had mentioned how pale he looked, but he’d brushed it off as being tired, anxiously pulling his bangs down over his forehead. She hadn’t seemed convinced, but she let him drop it.

Closing the door behind himself, Jean drops his bag and falls to his hands and knees, shakily moving to the bed.

“M-Marco? Are you there?”

Sensing his overwhelming distress, the shadows murmur, pooling out to cover his fingers.

_sleep._

Jean gnaws on his lip, glancing around his room, his eyes wild and anxious.

“I—I can’t.”

The dark seems to consider this, the weight on his hand just a little more solid for a moment.

 _come here._

Swallowing heavily, Jean drops flat onto his belly and wriggles under the bed, grateful for the way the dark seems to pull him in. It’s not quite as tangible as when he’s dreaming, but Marco’s so strong now that it’s pretty damn close. Certainly close enough for Jean. 

_tell me._

Jean takes a shuddering breath, pressing his cheek against the floorboard as he does his best to curl into a tiny little ball. He can almost feel Marco’s hand soothing up and down his back, cool even through Jean’s shirt. 

“That guy, he—he cornered me in the stairwell.”

The petting stops for a moment, and the shadows gather around him, already angry. Marco starts moving his hand again quickly, though, and Jean’s immeasurably grateful for it. He swallows again, squeezing his eyes shut for a beat against the way sick fear is still twisting in his stomach, then continues.

“He got me on the ground under the stairs and fucking—he _sat_ on me, on my back, like a fucking boulder. Pulled my hair, called me shit.” The shade around him grows darker, heavier, roiling like thunder. “Then he—”

Jean chokes on his next words, shoving his hand against his face and wincing at the sharp, burning sting. 

“He fucking pulled a lighter on me, a-and—he pulled my head up, and then he—he lit it and held it under my face.” Jean curls in tighter, quaking at the memory of blistering heat so close to his eye, singeing his eyebrow and burning his forehead. “H-he could’ve—he tried to light me on _fire,_ Marco, what the f-fuck.”

Fury sparks and snaps through the shade, but Marco winds himself tighter around Jean, as if trying to shield him from everything else.

 _close your eyes._

Jean’s still scared, still trembling, still remembering in flashes how the wavering flame had looked so close to him, blinding and hot enough to burn so easily. The thought of closing his eyes and seeing its afterimage in brilliant definition seared into the backs of his eyelids is enough to make him sick.

He trusts Marco, though.

So he does.

For a few long seconds, he just feels Marco gathering himself. Thinking, collecting energy, packing away his flaring anger. 

Then, he feels soil.

He hadn’t fallen asleep, but here he is, the hidden place where they share their dreams. The smell of rain is stronger, and the smell of wood smoke weaker, as if packed down into the earth where it can’t scare him.

Jean shivers out a breath, but keeps his eyes closed.

He feels those cool fingers on his shoulder from behind, the touch tentative, not wanting to startle him. It still does, so they squeeze apologetically. Jean forces himself to relax, though, taking deep, calming breaths of Marco’s shaded air.

Marco’s hand squeezes his shoulder again, before he trails his knuckles slowly up Jean’s cheek, lightly caressing the soft, wet skin there before continuing further, where he presses the pads of his fingers against the faint pink burn running up Jean’s forehead from his eyebrow. It should probably hurt, but Marco’s skin is so cold that it doesn’t. Jean deflates with another shaky sigh, tilting his head into that chilly hand. 

His monster’s touch is so soothing, so gentle and almost loving that Jean relaxes further, sinking back as if in search of more. 

To his genuine shock, he actually finds more.

Marco’s chest is broad and strong and just as cool as the rest of him. He’s kneeling behind Jean, almost a full form, and Jean wants to open his eyes but he’s fucking terrified that the illusion will end if he does.

 _jean..._

Jean twitches at the sound, just a brush against his ear. Behind him, Marco thinks again, then slowly, gently wraps his bare arms around Jean’s shoulders, holding him so perfectly. Jean’s almost ready to be content with this, with the way Marco feels pressed against his back, when something cold and dry brushes against his ear, making him jump.

Marco has a face. At least, Jean thinks so. There’s something pressed into his mussed hair, nuzzling against the base of his skull before coming back up and resting against his ear again.

A voice drifts darkly into his ear, one he hasn’t heard in many years, still as soft and dusty as before but now tempered with Marco’s newfound strength, and with his still-simmering anger. It’s stormy, tense, but _god_ is it a beautiful sound.

“Let me help you, Jean.”

Jean shivers at that, but not because Marco’s cold.

“H-how?”

Marco hums quietly, the sound distant and muffled despite the fact that Marco’s nudging his face against the back of Jean’s head again.

“Let me in.”

His brow furrows in confusion. Before he can ask, though, Marco trails one hand up Jean’s shoulder, then under his chin, his cold palm resting against Jean’s throat in a way that could be threatening, but somehow isn’t. Jean leans his head back on Marco’s shoulder, exposing his throat entirely, in case that’s what Marco wants. Rather than tighten his grip, Marco just rubs their cheeks together, still waiting patiently for permission.

“I want—” Jean’s voice cracks, so he swallows and tries again. “I want to see you.”

There’s a long silence while Marco considers the bargain. It’s the same familiar silence as always, though, so Jean just drags his fingers through the soil and waits.

“If I let you see me, will you let me help?”

Without hesitation, Jean breathes, “Yes.”

Marco sighs, his breath frosty against the side of Jean’s neck. He squeezes his arms around him again before slowly releasing him, and it almost seems as if his limbs fade away into heavy shadow. Taking a deep breath, Jean blinks his eyes open, fruitlessly trying to get them to adjust. He sits up straight, digging his fingers deeper into the soil, then turns and looks.

As it turns out, his monster seems very much human.

A pretty dead human, but human nonetheless.

Marco’s dark eyes are averted, but Jean can tell well enough that one of them is completely black, whites and all. He’s pale and grey like a corpse, but he still has dark freckles spattered all over his cold skin. His short hair is dark and messy, his bangs hanging loosely over his forehead, and to Jean’s great unease, some of it looks pretty singed. He can’t really tell if Marco is wearing clothes, either, because when he blinks, in the brief second just before his eyelids close, he can see long trails of freckles leading down his broad chest, cut off abruptly by a horrible red scar encompassing most of his right chest and shoulder.

When he looks closer, though, he feels like Marco’s wearing a big cream-colored sweater, but the shadows keep shifting and waving in a way that makes it hard to focus on. 

Jean’s kind of struck dumb. Marco is _gorgeous._

“Y-you’re—” Jean swallows heavily, and Marco curls in on himself a little, his brow furrowing as if anticipating rejection. “Are you a ghost?” Marco squeezes his eyes shut and gives a tiny nod. “Did you—did you live here before me?”

Marco shakes his head at that, his hands twisting nervously in the hem of his sweater. “My house—it burned down. Yours was built on top of it. It’s nicer.”

Jean supposes that makes sense. He’s always heard the sounds coming from under the floor, despite the fact that his house is only one floor and doesn’t have a basement. He turns more, his knees brushing against Marco’s. “It burned?”

Exhaling sharply, Marco frowns at his lap, then nods. He looks up at Jean then, his lips pressed tight together, mismatched eyes shining with anger, and with anxiety. 

“That fear you felt—I know it. No one should have to. The fact that that asshole did it on _purpose_ —” Marco stops to seethe, his fury like thunder clouds collecting in the shadows around him. “It really pisses me off.”

Jean crosses his arms shakily. He knows that Marco’s protective of him, even fond of him, but this goes beyond that. This seems personal for him.

Licking his lips, Jean glances up at Marco again, then nods. “I’ll let you help.”

Marco’s expression softens at that, grateful and so, so entrancing to look at. He nods too, then rubs his nose shyly, suddenly embarrassed. “I, um. I’m going to possess you. J-just for tomorrow, and not even the whole day.”

Grunting quietly, Jean raises an eyebrow and shrugs. “Sounds weird, but okay.”

“A little.” Marco chews on his lip for a moment, looking at Jean through his eyelashes. “Sorry if, uh. If this isn’t your thing. You can think of it as just business, if you like.”

Jean stares at him blankly, but rather than explain himself, Marco steels himself, then leans forward and presses his cool hand against Jean’s cheek.

He’s so close now, close enough for Jean to distinguish individual freckles dusted across the bridge of Marco’s nose. He rubs his thumb over Jean’s cheekbone, his dark eyes falling to Jean’s dry lips, his gaze lingering there in a way that sets Jean’s heart pounding. Marco moves his thumb to press against Jean’s lower lip, gently coaxing him into parting them.

Marco runs his thumb lightly over Jean’s lip again, his tongue sneaking out to wet his own, before he presses further, guiding Jean into opening his mouth a little more. The tip of his thumb tastes dry, like ash, but Jean can’t really bring himself to hate it. 

“It’s only for a day,” Marco whispers, and then he’s leaning further forward, and before Jean can really figure out what’s going on, Marco is kissing him.

As Marco’s eyes flutter closed, Jean’s widen in shock. Marco’s lips are so cold, and so nice against his. They’re _soft,_ too, impossibly soft, and Jean would feel self-conscious about his own chapped lips if he wasn’t so distracted by the way Marco eases him into relaxing for him, his thumb still pressing against the corner of Jean’s lips.

Marco kisses him so sweetly, brushing their lips together a few times before he sighs, his breath chilly against Jean’s tongue. Marco tilts his head slightly, parting his own lips and just barely slipping the tip of his tongue against Jean’s. It’s tantalizing, just that brief taste of _more,_ of fresh ice and familiar darkness, and Jean’s all but dying for more when Marco pulls away from him.

“Thank you,” Marco whispers against his lips. Jean shivers out a hum and leans in again, but he finds nothing but empty space. Blinking his eyes open, Jean furrows his brow when he realizes Marco isn’t there anymore.

He’s not alone, though. Jean can feel Marco still, like a gentle pressure at the back of his skull, a soothing presence within him. 

Slowly, the void falls down around them, leaving Jean kneeling on his bedroom floor, his lips still tingling from the chill.

\--

The next day is very weird. 

Jean is afraid, of course he is. He can feel Marco, though, as heavy as always, but now more conveniently located. As pleasant as that is, it turns out that being possessed is tiring as hell, leaving Jean slumped over with exhaustion even before lunch. Marco expresses his apologies in gentle pulses, wordlessly promising to vacate as soon as they get home. 

When Jean sees that asshole hulking down the hallway toward him, looking pissed off already, something burns acidic in Jean’s throat, and then he blacks out.

\--

He comes to in a dark broom closet with a horrible taste in his mouth. Like disturbed soil, like charred wood and ashes, heavy on his tongue and on his lips.

Marco’s still possessing him, very obviously drained. He’s flickering in the back of Jean’s head, barely there, but a dark, ghastly sense of satisfaction radiates off of him in waves. It’s almost enough to brighten Jean’s mood too.

Grumbling about the taste, Jean rubs the back of his hand over his lips. It comes away with a thick black smudge across his skin, slippery and stubborn like oil. Another few passes with the inside of his sleeve reveal more of the stuff, as if his face had been painted with it.

In response to Jean’s unspoken question, Marco offers him an image, a crystal clear vision of himself from inside this broom closet, and Jean can see now why there’s so much of this shit.

With total control of Jean’s body, Marco had stormed forward down the hall, plowing full force into the dude’s chest and knocking him off balance. The dude snarled yet another uncreative slur at him, so Marco spat right in his eye, then turned around and sprinted down the hall.

He ended up luring the dude into the broom closet, the guy’s meaty fist already going for his pocket when he yanked the door shut. His lips were moving, but Marco couldn’t hear anything he said over the sound of his ears ringing, his pulse racing. There was a feeling then of boiling fury, his vision tunneling through the dark, but when the lighter came out and he flicked it on, sickly, stabbing _terror_ had shocked through Marco.

The rage came back quickly, bowling through the fear, and when he looked up at the dude again, he fisted his hands tight and focused.

It had run thick and dark from his nose first, and in the poor light, the guy had mistaken it for blood. He’d been thrown off, but quick to sneer at him, looming over him with the lighter coming ever closer to Jean’s face, to his hair. 

As it was dripping from the corners of his lips, off the point of his chin, Marco used Jean’s mouth to _grin,_ horrible and toothy and now smudged black with the same oil shit that was streaming from his nose, that Jean just wiped off with his sleeve. It poured out like paint, splattering loud and wet on the floor between them, shining unnaturally in the dim, wavering firelight. 

Marco had laughed then, loud and more than a little crazed, and the oil had sprayed out of his mouth and landed in specks all over the guy’s shirt. Thrown off again, the guy just gaped down at him, moving his eyes from Jean’s face to the growing puddle on the floor and back. 

Not yet satisfied, Marco focused until his head ached, and the oil seeped from his tear ducts as well, clouding over his eyes until they were both black as pitch, wide and _awful_ with a sick kind of glee. That enjoyment only intensified when the lighter clattered to the ground and the closet door slammed open, the dude sprinting away from that room as fast as he could. 

And now here Jean is, blinking and rubbing at his eyes to clear the oil, making sure he’s gotten all the shit off his face before he leaves the dark closet. He imagines he should be scared or something, but mostly he just feels like his brains have been blown right out of his skull, so he just spaces out for the rest of the day.

When he comes home, he feels Marco all but collapse out of his head, a thin shadow curling into the safety of the darkness under the bed. His head feels strange now, lighter and emptier without Marco’s presence. 

He’s not any better off in terms of exhaustion, so Jean falls face-first onto his bed and promptly passes out.

In his dreams, Marco is sleeping, curled up on his side and clouded in shadow. Jean flops down beside him, his tired gaze tracing imaginary lines between all of Marco’s freckles, and before he falls asleep, he reaches between them and takes one of Marco’s cool hands in his.

\--

Jean isn’t particularly disturbed by the way Marco had used his body. He’s not sure why, and he’s willing to bet that’s just another symptom of his likely insanity, but it is what it is. Marco seems more concerned by it than him, based on the way he hides himself over the next few days, too shy to show his face again.

All Jean really cares about is whether or not it got the guy off his back, which it did. 

For the rest of his senior year, Jean doesn’t see that dude. He doesn’t know if he transferred or dropped out, and he’s not about to ask anyone. 

When he gets his college acceptance letters that spring, the whole thing slips his mind altogether, and a new challenge makes itself known.

\--

“So you really can’t move?”

Marco sighs, his gaze drifting to the left in the way it does when he’s getting frustrated. “No, Jean.”

Jean furrows his brow. “I don’t see why you can’t just live in my suitcase.”

“It’s _tiny._ ” Marco huffs again, crossing his arms and all but pouting. It’s pretty cute. “Besides, I didn’t die in your suitcase, I died in our room. Leaving here on my own takes too much out of me.”

Something about the way he says that makes Jean think Marco’s afraid. Like if he leaves the boundaries of their shared space, the lines of the old house or the new ones built on top, something terrible will happen and he’ll be lost forever.

Suddenly, Jean’s afraid too.

They’d already ruled out having Marco just possess him through college. It’s too tiring, and too risky. They’re pretty much out of options at this point, and Jean steadfastly refuses to leave his monster for an entire semester, just to live alone for the first time in his life.

Jean flops onto his back and laces his fingers under his head, grateful for the way the cool soil feels against his knuckles. “Guess I’ll just commute from home, then.”

“Jean, is that really worth it?”

Blinking up at Marco where he’s kneeling over him, his pale expression now concerned and slightly guilty, Jean watches him chew on his lip for a long moment.

To be honest, Marco’s worth anything. 

He reaches up and rests his palm against Marco’s cheek, sliding his thumb along the dark bruise beneath his blackened eye. Marco’s eyes flutter closed, his long, pretty eyelashes brushing against the tip of Jean’s thumb.

Marco had always seen through Jean’s gregarious facades. He’d never been able to fool his monster, but for some reason, he couldn’t ever stop trying.

Now, though, with the way Marco’s cool hand feels resting over his, Jean thinks he might finally understand how to swallow his pride.

When he responds, his voice is raspy, barely even a whisper in the dark. 

“Yes.”

\--

While Jean maintains that the commute is worth it, he can’t deny that it’s a pretty giant pain in his ass. 

Even so, it gives him the freedom to get away from school every night, to come home to a place that’s familiar, where his mother still cooks for him and where his monster still keeps him company in the dark.

It’s really not so bad. 

\--

“Can you run that by me again?”

Jean sighs and drags his fingers through his hair for the nth time that night. It’s not Marco’s fault he doesn’t understand modern genetics, but when Jean had asked for a rubber ducky to sort out one of his problems, he thinks that Marco might have missed the point.

Still, trying to find three different ways to teach his monster about regulation of gene expression is doing a pretty damn good job of cementing the topic in his brain. It’s even kind of fun.

After a third go-round at what RNA polymerase does, Marco throws his hands up. “I don’t have the space in my head for all this, Jean, I don’t know how you do it.” He sighs loudly, then turns and flops backward so his head lands on Jean’s thigh, looking woefully over-taught. “How did you get so damn smart, anyway?”

Jean flusters pretty badly at that, between being genuinely unable to take a compliment and having Marco touching him so casually.

Knowing that he’s not gifted with words, Marco gives him a wide, amused smile and lets him squirm.

\--

Despite how close they’ve gotten since Marco possessed him, and despite how tactile Marco is where he can hold the form to do it, they haven’t kissed again. They haven’t even really talked about it.

Instead, they stay up late together and flirt over Jean’s homework, and every time it starts getting a little too late, or they start getting a little too close, something sad passes over Marco’s face, and then the dream fades into empty sleep.

It’s driving Jean crazy.

One cold winter night, Jean’s stressed out from finals, drinking too much coffee to try and stave off the dream’s end, and Marco’s being so _fucking_ cute it’s impossible to focus.

Their hands brush over a stack of flash cards, and before Marco can pull his hand back, Jean curls his fingers around it. Marco hesitates, his teeth finding his lip and chewing it pale, before he offers Jean a weak, crooked smile and tries again to take his hand back.

“Marco,” Jean whispers, his grip tightening slightly. Marco’s hand is so cool in his, and he hopes to god his palms aren’t sweaty.

“Jean,” Marco replies, his voice soft, but the unspoken warning is near deafening. His distress, his sadness ripple through the shade, the air running thick like water.

Pushing his books aside, Jean scoots closer to Marco, ducking to try and catch his mismatched gaze when Marco turns his head away. “Marco, _please,_ ” he tries again. 

Marco’s eyes slide closed, not entirely giving in but not resisting him either.

Jean lifts his other hand to Marco’s cheek, gently coaxing him into turning back toward him, although he keeps his eyes closed. “Just—just tell me you don’t want this too,” he murmurs, his voice muffled in the heavy space between them.

There’s a long silence, one of Marco’s thinking silences, and Jean spends it dragging his thumb along Marco’s cheekbone, squeezing Marco’s hand in his.

“You can’t want something like me.”

For the first time in a long time, Jean’s old temper flares up. Marco is supposed to _understand_ him, to see through him without him having to try. He thought Marco knew already.

“I can, and I do,” he says, his voice trembling slightly with his badly-restrained anger. 

Marco’s face crumples, his expression so fucking sad it hurts to look at. “You _don’t,_ Jean. I know you’ll find someone, someone at school or something. Someone—someone alive.” 

Jean leans closer, his grip tightening, although he can already feel Marco starting to slip away like smoke, his shadows clouding around him. “I don’t want someone else, Marco, and I don’t care that you’re dead.”

Out of all the things in the known universe he could have said, out of all the dumb shit that could have come out of his mouth, it had to be fucking _that._

Marco’s upset. Extremely upset.

And why wouldn’t he be. _He_ sure cares that he’s dead. He’s never really been okay with it, and some part of him has always been almost violently ashamed. 

“M-Marco, I didn’t—” Jean stammers around an apology, trying desperately to take those words back. “I don’t mean it like that, I—”

Whenever Marco gets too agitated, he forgets how to communicate. Sometimes it’s hard for him even on a good day, after so many years resorting to anything else to reach the living. Before Jean, he’d just been a poltergeist, slamming doors and leaving the cruel stink of ozone in his wake.

Marco curls in on himself, angry and sad and scared, and his form vanishes into acrid wood smoke and thick dust.

 ** _go away._**

Jean startles at the now-unfamiliar sound, the rumble beneath his left ear, and when he opens his eyes, he’s alone on the floor.

Every light in his room flickers and pulses, dimming and flaring with no discernible pattern, before all of them spark and go out.

\--

Jean doesn’t dream for months.

He tries to talk to Marco like he used to. He crawls under his bed where the shadows just feel like shadows, and he presses his ear to the floor, and he listens. He scratches his nails against the wood, trying desperately to make contact, but nothing happens.

He cries more than he has in years, and he apologizes more than he ever has in his life, but the void won’t come for him.

For the first time, Jean feels truly alone.

\--

Toward the middle of his first spring semester, Jean is a hollow, studied-out shell. His classes are hard, and while he’s getting better at getting along with his classmates, he doesn’t really have any good friends yet. 

He misses Marco so badly it aches. 

It just solidifies how much he likes him, how much he likes his company, how desperately he wants to torment him with his complicated-ass homework again.

He knows he fucked up, but he doesn’t know how to fix it, and it’s killing him.

On the last weekend before midterms, Jean knows he’s supposed to be studying, but all he can think about is how empty his room feels without his monster. 

So, he Googles.

\--

Jean’s house was built in the late eighties. It was an empty lot before that, the ashes of the older house buried and grown over with weeds.

The house Marco died in burned down in January of 1972. The fire killed everyone but Marco’s two sisters, who had been at rehearsal for a school play. It was intentional. Premeditated. The arsonist went to prison, then was released on parole after a few years, and somewhere in the world today, the man that murdered Marco Bodt is still breathing.

If he hadn’t already taken out student loans for next year, Jean would find him and kill him himself.

It takes an immense amount of finagling and some really questionable search terms, but Jean finds out where Marco is buried, and instead of beating his head against general chemistry for the umpteenth time, he takes a short trip.

\--

The graveyard Marco was buried in is tiny and kind of decrepit. It seems to have fallen out of favor, based on the lack of new burials, or even fresh flowers. 

There’s a light rain falling when Jean finds Marco’s grave. He’s buried between his parents, and his headstone is small and plain. By the dates, Marco was nineteen when he died. 

Unconcerned for the wet ground, Jean sits down in front of the headstone, then drops the small bouquet he’d brought at the base. It’s not really anything special, just something he’d seen at the nearby florist and thought was pretty. It seems like something Marco would like.

He’s not really expecting anything from this visit. He’s pretty sure Marco’s still under his house, not here. At least, he hopes so. 

It just feels like he owes Marco this. Some effort, some respect. Some mourning.

For a long time, Jean sits quietly and mourns, and he blames the wet trails running down his cheeks on the rain.

\--

At the end of his spring semester, Jean has to come to terms with the fact that he failed a class for the first time. Ever.

It’s really fucking him up, too, not just because he hadn’t planned for any failed classes, but because he’d really _tried._ He’d studied so hard, and he’d done the homework, and he’d really felt like he was doing pretty okay.

His final grade says otherwise.

It’s around midnight and he’s still burying his choked sobs in his pillow, trying to force himself to just get over it, when he hears the sharp sound of his desk lamp flickering.

Heart in his throat, Jean rolls over and sits up, looking carefully at every shaded corner in the room.

Nothing moves in the dark, and all the shadows seem empty and still.

The exhaustion is real, and even though Jean wants to stay awake, to keep staring at the lamp in hopes that it flickers again, he succumbs to sleep.

Just before he drifts away, his brain convinces him that he’s hearing something.

A mute, soothing _scratch, scratch, scratch._

\--

That summer, Jean picks up a retail job. His mother’s getting older, and even with Jean still around the house to help out, she can’t work long hours like she used to. She had tried to convince him to just relax and have a fun summer, that she’s fine, but Jean is nothing if not stubborn.

Besides, it gives him something to do, because otherwise he’d spend the whole break thinking about Marco.

It feels like it’s been a decade since they last made contact, and the distance hurts him more with each day that passes.

\--

When class starts up again in the fall, Jean quits his shit job, but he doesn’t apply to live in a dorm. He’s a full-on homebody now, and he’s too set in his ways to change. 

His classes are harder this semester.

He gets himself an actual rubber ducky to sit on his desk and listen to him ramble, since that’s still the easiest way for him to learn the immense amount of shit being piled on his head from every angle.

Marco made a much better rubber ducky, and a much cuter one, which Jean tells it all the time, hoping that it feels ashamed of itself.

One night, slumped over his desk and mumbling viciously at the duck, Jean swears he hears something behind him. A breath of a laugh, barely perceptible, come and gone before his brain can even begin to make something of it.

He turns around and stares down at the darkness under the bed, but it stays still and silent.

There’s something blossoming in his chest, though. Something warm. Something... present.

Jean takes a deep breath and turns back to his work with newfound vigor, doing his best to respect the boundaries he feels being drawn up around him.

\--

Midterms are harder this year. So much harder. Jean is fucking delirious.

He has friends now. People who he respects, and who seem to like him, or at least tolerate his presence. He spends more time away from home, crammed in library study rooms with them, snorting whenever Eren very seriously suggests eating his textbook to absorb the material.

As much as he likes them, he makes sure to come home every night, both to help his mother with dinner and to spend some time in his dark room. He doesn’t even turn the lights on anymore if he’s not actively studying. 

One night, his head swimming with terms and sequences and reactions, Jean’s lying on his bed staring at the ceiling when he hears something.

It’s muffled, distant. Not as clear as it used to be, not even when he was a child.

 _Scratch, scratch, scratch._

It sounds so weak now. Jean feels guilty, but realistically, he couldn’t have fed Marco even if he tried, not if Marco didn’t want to see him. 

He scrambles off his bed and all but flings himself underneath, cramming his ear against the floor and trying to listen over his own pulse. “Marco?”

At first, there’s nothing. Just the silence and some dust bunnies. 

Then, a sigh. Mute and rattling, nearly inhuman.

Fear, excitement, and relief slam into Jean all at the same time, each of them overwhelming in their own right. He spreads his fingers across the wood and closes his eyes, reaching for Marco with all his strength.

For the first time in almost a year, something reaches back.

\--

Jean isn’t as angry as he used to be. He’s settled now, less angsty and more just plain grouchy. He’s worried that he doesn’t have enough to feed Marco now that his temper has evened out.

So, he tries a little bit of everything.

Every day, he comes home and helps around the house for a bit, then retreats to his room, right under his bed. In the dark, he whispers about his day, about having made friends, about how much he learned from Marco and how much better he is with people thanks to him. He tells him about his courses stressing him out, about people that irritate him in labs, about how there are some things he just can’t seem to get right.

A month of this goes by, with Jean digging deep for anything and everything he can find that might sustain Marco, but not much changes. If anything, he hears the scratching a little more frequently, but that’s about it.

\--

Once Christmas break is in full swing, Jean spends a lot more time in his room.

He’s still trying to find things to help Marco. He lets people get under his skin more, lets things annoy him and linger in his thoughts more, hoping that they might fester into something closer to what he felt when he was a teenager.

It sucks for him, and even worse, it doesn’t seem to be helping.

On New Year’s Eve, Jean is under his bed when he hears the ball drop in the living room, and on impulse, he closes his eyes, then presses his dry lips to the floor.

Maybe it’s the eggnog, but Jean swears he feels something.

A pulse. Slow and faint, just a blip in the dark.

Maybe it’s nothing.

\--

Jean can’t stop thinking about it.

There is still one thing that’s hurting him badly, one thing that’s wedged itself into his brain and refuses to let up, but it’s the one thing Jean hasn’t tried to feed Marco.

He’s still in love with his monster.

He hasn’t told him, though. He hasn’t even brought it up, never put it to words, because he remembers too clearly how _sad_ Marco had looked back then. 

Being loved should never have to make someone sad.

It’s a gamble, and he knows it. If he fucks this up, there’s a chance Marco will stop contacting him again, and if that happens, he could fade away altogether.

The pulse from New Year’s Eve is the only thing Jean even has to go on. It had been so subtle, so quiet, and yet... 

It felt happy. Just the tiniest bit.

So Jean decides to try.

\--

He spends a lot of his break training himself to dream. With enough energy, he thinks he can find that place again, their shared darkness. If he’s gonna do this, if he’s gonna tell Marco how he feels, he needs it to be there.

He needs it to matter.

A few times, he thinks he’s made it. He’s dreaming, that’s for sure, but the ground beneath him is unstable and effervescent, slipping in and out of shadow, refusing to solidify the way it used to when Marco was holding it together. He keeps pushing, keeps trying, calling for Marco the whole time.

The night before the new semester starts, Jean pushes until his head aches, until his ears ring, and finally, the void seems to settle.

“Marco?” His voice is so quiet, so far away. 

Silence.

Then, thunder in the dark, and the smell of rain.

_how are you doing this?_

Jean swallows heavily, his heart pounding in his chest. “I don’t—I don’t really know.” He looks around, searching for some sign of Marco and finding only familiar nothingness. “I’ve been looking for you for so long.”

 _i’ve been hiding from you._

That sparks anger in Jean’s chest. Rejection and frustration burn on his tongue. “Why?”

There’s a long silence then, possibly one of Marco’s thinking silences, but Jean’s just becoming more agitated. 

_having feelings for me was a mistake. my mistake._

Jean huffs, crossing his arms tightly. “Bullshit. They were _my_ feelings, and I—I liked them.”

Thunder again.

 _you can’t love something like me._

It’s not the first time he’s heard it, but Jean’s had it up to fucking here with that. 

“No offense, Marco, but you don’t know _shit._ ” The darkness seems to recoil, almost stunned. Jean fists his hands and spits, “You don’t get to tell me who I can and can’t love. _I_ don’t even get to tell me that. You can’t just will it away.”

The void pulses again, anxious and upset, and for a few minutes, all Jean hears is scratching.

He takes a deep breath, then whispers, “All you have to do is tell me if I read this wrong.” His teeth dig into his lip, his fists shaking at his sides. “All you have to do is tell me you don’t love me too.”

There’s a deafening crash of thunder directly over his head then, which startles a yelp out of him and sets him quaking. He drops into a crouch and covers his ears, staring around, and when the stench of wood smoke overcomes the smell of rain, Jean feels like he might have fucked up again.

 _go away._

Jean whips his head around, searching for the source of that sound, even though it’s coming from everywhere and nowhere. “You can’t just get rid of me like that! You have feelings for me, don’t you?”

The ground quakes beneath him, rumbling and clattering, barely covering the sound of splintering wood, roaring flames. 

**_go away._**

_“No!”_

Jean turns around, coughing and choking on smoke, his eyes burning from the sudden heat.

He can feel Marco trying to shove him out, can sense the pain and the despair coming from every part of this place, but he resists. He pushes back with everything he has, until his head is splitting and something hot drips onto his lips, down his chin. When he wipes the back of his hand across his face, it comes back smeared with blood.

That seems to upset Marco even more.

 _please, jean, please go away._

The sound of shattering glass, of collapsing supports, of sparking electrical wiring.

Jean pulls his shirt up over his nose to try and block the stench of smoke, still looking around for something, anything. He’s getting light-headed, though, so he has to kneel again to collect himself.

“If you really don’t want to see me, Marco, I’ll leave.” He closes his eyes, his voice trembling and wet with tears that he doesn’t bother suppressing. “I don’t want to hurt you any more. I don’t.” The sound of groaning wood, collapsing rubble, a distant scream distorted and staticky. Jean feels like his head is splitting apart, so he curls into a ball on the ground and clutches it with both of his hands, as if trying to hold it together. 

Marco died over forty years ago, but the pain and terror that reflects itself here on this space feels brand fucking new. He’s been carrying this for so long, haunting the same plot of land he died on, and all Jean wants is to hold him and give him the same comfort and reassurance Marco had offered him so many times.

Jean takes a few rattling, insufficient breaths, pressing his head to the ground.

“I love you, Marco. I love you.”

The sound of fire stops.

For a long moment, everything stops. The stench, the ache in his skull, the turmoil in the shadows around him.

He lets out a long breath and closes his eyes, grateful for the respite.

“If you really don’t want to see me anymore, I’ll go. I swear. I’ll even move out if you want me to.” He swallows heavily, then sits up on his knees, staring into the silent gloom. “All you have to do is ask.”

It starts raining.

The ground beneath him becomes soft again, but it feels like it’s littered with charred wood, some of it still hot from the fire. It won’t absorb the rain, either, so water collects in puddles around him, dripping from his bangs and soaking his clothes. He digs his fingers into the earth anyway, desperate to hold onto this dream as long as he can.

Then, behind him, a voice. Soft, dusty, and so, so beautiful it makes him dizzy.

“I can’t ask that.”

Jean swallows again, staring down at where his fingers disappear into the black dirt.

“Can I turn around?”

There’s thunder then, but it’s distant, barely audible under the sound of the rain.

Marco doesn’t say no, but he doesn’t say yes either, so Jean stays where he is, waiting for Marco to say anything.

When a cold hand slips onto his shoulder, it startles the bejeezus out of him. He forces himself to settle quickly, though, mumbling a soft apology. They’re both drenched and freezing, their skin clammy, but Jean still relaxes into the feeling of Marco’s narrow fingers dipping under his collar and tracing his collarbone.

“I can’t ever leave here, Jean.”

“I know.”

“I can barely even come into your world.”

“I know.”

The hand on his shoulder squeezes gently, then slides across his chest to his other shoulder. He closes his eyes and leans into it, but Marco’s still barely here, still more smoke than anything else. 

“I can’t ask you to stay here and play dead with me.” Jean bites his lip, his breath hitching, but when something brushes against the back of his head, he waits just a little longer. “But I can’t... I can’t lie to you.”

Jean nods slightly, then slowly, carefully pulls one of his hands out of the dirt. He waits, just to make sure Marco doesn’t recoil, before he reaches up and places his frozen hand on top of Marco’s, curling their fingers together in his soaked shirt.

Marco’s next words come from everywhere around him more than the lips trembling against the turn of his jaw.

“I love you, Jean.”

Jean’s heart soars. He hears Marco gathering more words, though, and he knows what’s going to come next, so he squeezes their hands tighter and cuts him off. “Don’t you dare apologize.” Marco is taken aback by that, but the only way Jean can tell is by the way the shade twists anxiously around them. “Don’t apologize for loving me, okay?” Biting his lip around a smile, his eyes still closed, Jean leans his head back against Marco’s. “I mean, _someone_ has to, right?”

It takes a moment, but Marco snorts softly at that, dropping his forehead into the curve of Jean’s shoulder. His other arm slips around Jean’s waist, gentle and only half present, but Jean relishes the touch anyway.

“Someone will, Jean. Someone probably does already. Someone alive.”

They’re here again, and Jean bites his tongue this time to pick his words more carefully.

“I don’t want someone that isn’t you, Marco.”

Finally, the rain stops. They’re still drenched, and everything still smells like fire, but it’s quiet now, save for Jean’s ragged breaths.

He licks his lips, then nudges his head against Marco’s and murmurs, “Can I turn around?”

Marco hums softly, rubbing his cheek against Jean’s shoulder, before he nods and lets him go.

Jean’s quicker to turn around this time, immediately spinning on his knees and reaching for Marco. He’s half-formed at best, though, most of him made of smoke. He’s probably expecting Jean to recoil from him. 

Instead, Jean reaches out and rests his hand against the cheek he can see, looking him over without flinching. When their eyes meet again, Jean strokes his thumb against frozen, grey skin, then leans in and carefully presses their lips together.

As expected, Marco tastes like bitter smoke, but that doesn’t deter Jean. He shifts closer, sliding his fingers through soaked black hair, fitting their mouths together as best he can before gently nibbling on Marco’s lower lip. Thankfully, Marco responds to him in kind after a moment, his eye fluttering closed as he drinks in everything Jean has for him, all the affection and reassurance and acceptance he can soak up over the course of a few slow kisses.

When Jean pulls away to look at him, he can’t help but notice that Marco seems a little more solid now, parts of him starting to fill in with flesh instead of smoke. Even his ugly cable-knit sweater is starting to come back in patches.

Ever the scientist, Jean comes up with a hypothesis and decides to test it.

He presses himself against Marco and kisses him again, harder and sweeter this time, moving closer until Marco falls over backward with a quiet yelp. Jean goes with it, leaning over him and kissing him again, happily threading his fingers back into Marco’s hair.

“I missed you,” he breathes, slipping his tongue between Marco’s parted lips just enough to test the waters. “I missed you so much.” Marco swallows heavily, then wraps both of his fully-formed arms around Jean’s shoulders and squeezes his eyes shut, letting Jean kiss him senseless. 

When Jean pulls back for breath, he stares down at Marco and is once again struck dumb by how fucking _beautiful_ he is under him. His mismatched eyes are half-lidded, his long eyelashes brushing his cheeks, and Jean can’t really help the way heat starts coiling low in his stomach. He sighs roughly and ducks into Marco’s throat, dragging hot, wet kisses up his neck just for an excuse to have his mouth on him again, and when Marco shivers and leans his head aside, his fingers coming to wind into Jean’s wet hair, all Jean can do is groan.

“Marco,” he mumbles, “Does this—is this helping?”

Marco squirms under him for a moment, doing his best to think around the way Jean’s tongue feels trailing up his neck. “H-helping what?”

“Helping you.” Jean sits up again and catches his gaze, then drags his thumb across Marco’s soft lower lip, noticing vaguely that they seem almost flushed from kissing him. Almost. “Feeding you, or whatever.”

The way Marco averts his eyes almost feels like a physical punch to the gut, with the way shame and sadness cloud his expression. “Jean...” Jean drops onto his elbows and rests his forehead against Marco’s cheek, but he waits for him to gather his words again. “I can’t keep using you like that.”

With a confused frown, Jean leans up again and stares at him. “What makes you think you were using me?”

“I—I was,” Marco protests, his hands fisting weakly in Jean’s drenched shirt. “I got stronger from you feeling awful, Jean.”

Jean continues staring blankly. “Dude, I was like fifteen. _Everything_ felt awful.” He gently guides Marco into looking at him again, stroking his fingers down Marco’s cheek. “And I would have felt awful whether you were there or not. You actually helped me, man.” Marco blinks up at him, clearly confused, but before he can deny it, Jean leans in and kisses him again, just a gentle brush of their lips. “You were the only one there for me for a really long time. I don’t know how I would have gotten by without you to talk to.”

Marco looks like he still wants to protest, but he can’t quite find the words to do so. Jean leans his chin in his hand and smiles down at him, trying not to be charmed by how cute Marco gets when he’s trying to wrap his brain around something new.

Before he can get too frustrated, Jean nudges their noses together and murmurs, “You remember last year, when I taught you about symbiotic relationships?”

Huffing quietly, Marco’s gaze drifts to the left, as expected. “I already knew _that,_ but yes, I remember.”

Jean concedes the point, willing to let Marco’s pride take precedence over his own. “Okay, well, I’m pretty sure that’s what this is, dude.” Marco blinks up at him again, his mismatched eyes wide. “It didn’t take anything out of me to spend time with you, and both of us benefited from it, right? We had a good thing.”

“You spent half your childhood under the bed with me, Jean.”

“Yes, and?” Jean huffs and runs his hand through his dripping bangs, plastering them back against his head. “Marco, I was made of porcupines for my entire childhood, it’s not like I would’ve fucking gone outside anyway.”

Marco doesn’t even try to deny that. He does bite his lip around a smile, though, and that expression is so adorable it sets off butterflies in Jean’s stomach. 

Sighing softly, Jean leans their foreheads together and closes his eyes. “Stop trying to make yourself out to be a monster, Marco. You’re not. Living in the dark doesn’t make you evil.”

That makes Marco’s breath hitch slightly. His trembling hands come up to Jean’s waist again, fisting anxiously in the wet material of his shirt. He lets himself process that, though, and while he does, Jean kisses him again, and a few more times, just because he can.

“You used to call me ‘your monster,’” Marco finally says, the tiniest hint of a pout in his voice.

Jean snorts, then leans his chin in his hand again, giving him a crooked smile. “If you want to be my monster, I’m okay with that. But there’s nothing bad about you.”

Marco swallows heavily, squeezing his eyes shut, before he reaches up and pulls Jean into another kiss, this one deeper, needier. Jean happily lets him, resting his sparse weight against him and leaning into it, threading his fingers into dark, tangled hair.

Before long, though, the squish of mud against Jean’s knees starts getting irritating, so he sits up again and raises an eyebrow at Marco. “Can we, uh, come to some kind of agreement about this place?” Marco tilts his head in question, and if Jean wasn’t actively lying on him, he’s pretty sure he would have fallen over. “It’s like. Cold and muddy. And I understand why, don’t get me wrong, but, uh.”

Marco frowns in thought, running one of his palms up Jean’s chest. “What would you suggest?”

Jean shrugs. “Something more homey?” He leans his chin in his hand again, his elbow sinking into the mud further proving his point. “Could just recreate my room or something.”

Shaking his head firmly, Marco pushes on Jean’s shoulders, then sits up after him. “I don’t think I can make whole places like that. Just... feelings.”

“Okay...” Jean rubs the back of his neck idly. “Can you make the feeling of my bedroom floor, at least?” He pauses, then averts his gaze, a flush darkening his face as he mumbles, “Or maybe my bed...”

Marco snorts at him, then flops back into the mud, his eyes sliding closed as he begins gathering himself again.

It takes some time, and no small amount of energy, but eventually Jean starts feeling a little warmer, and the ground under his knees starts feeling more solid. He swears he can almost feel his threadbare rug, too. As far as his eyes are concerned, nothing has changed, but the darkness feels entirely different.

Good thing he hasn’t changed the layout of his room literally ever.

He stands up and helps Marco up from the floor, holding onto him when he stumbles slightly, clearly dizzy. Feeling for the edge of the bed, Jean guides Marco into sitting on it, doing his best not to get too tripped up by the total lack of visual input. It’s something to work on, at least.

Marco hums, then scoots further onto the bed and sprawls across it, looking tired and very pretty. He bites his lip, glancing over at Jean, before shyly reaching one hand out toward him, at which Jean’s heart skips a truly inadvisable amount of beats. He shakes it off, though, and peels himself out of his soaked sleep clothes, mostly because he’s pretty done with being cold and wet. It leaves him rather exposed in just his boxers, but the desire to be at least partially naked and in Marco’s direct proximity rules out most of the urge to be self-conscious. 

Once he’s settled himself on the bed next to Marco, his hand resting in the soft curve of Marco’s waist, Jean wiggles closer, then murmurs, “You never answered my question earlier.”

“Hmm?”

Jean leans in again and kisses Marco slowly, humming when he shivers, then arches into him. He indulges himself a little more, tugging him closer and deepening the kiss before pulling back slightly. “Is this helping you?”

Marco fidgets bashfully, playing with the hem of his sweater and sucking on his lips. He waffles for a moment, then gives the tiniest nod, every part of him still hesitant to enjoy the energy Jean is happily offering him. Jean sighs softly and nuzzles against him, slowly dragging one hand up under his sweater, over his bony hip. 

“Can I touch you, Marco?”

Swallowing nervously, Marco lowers his gaze again, both of his hands now winding into the worn knit. “I’m—I know I’m cold.”

“Are you?” Jean rolls them over and climbs into Marco’s lap again, ducking to kiss along his jaw in a way he sincerely hopes is teasing. “Think I can warm you up?”

Marco shivers at that, wrapping his arms around Jean’s waist. “I don’t... actually know.”

Jean hums understandingly, then nudges his nose against Marco’s ear, pressing their bodies together. “Can I try?”

After a moment, Marco sighs quietly, then nods, quickly burying his face in Jean’s bare shoulder. Jean lets him hide for now, murmuring his thanks against Marco’s cheek. If nothing else, it’s worth a shot. Multiple shots, even, if Marco will allow it. 

Despite talking big, Jean doesn’t exactly know where to start with this. He has a pretty active imagination, and he may have spent ninety percent of his showers from puberty onward jerking off and hoping Marco couldn’t hear him, but actually having this opportunity, actually having Marco under him, wanting him to touch him... it’s a little daunting.

Marco seems to sense his hesitation, but luckily, he understands what it is. He presses his cool lips against Jean’s shoulder, humming quietly at the feeling of Jean’s pulse fluttering under his skin, then pulls his sleeves over his hands and runs them gently along Jean’s spine.

While Jean appreciates the gesture, he wants Marco’s hands on him, cold or not. He’s thought about this so many times, wondered whether Marco could take in his body heat, whether he could flush and sweat and ache for him. 

Based on the slight bulge pressing against his hip, it seems he can get at least some of the way on his own, which Jean decides to take as encouragement.

He sits up then and bites his lip as he stares down at Marco, at the way he looks sprawled under him in the gloom, his hair mussed and his mismatched eyes dark. Marco tries to look away again, his eyes narrowing, but before he can hide too much, Jean ducks back in and kisses him firmly, reassuringly, his fingers spreading over Marco’s chest. 

When he sits back up again, Marco meets his gaze and holds it, his covered hands holding onto Jean’s narrow hips as best he can. Jean gives him a pleased hum, then slips one of his hands under the hem of his bulky sweater. “Can I take this?”

Marco fidgets for a moment, then sits up against him and fists his hands in the back of the sweater, pulling it up and off himself. He tosses it aside, then looks back up at Jean through his eyelashes as he cautiously rests his palms on Jean’s hips again. His hands are cold, but so is most of Jean from the phantom rain, so the temperature isn’t much of a shock.

Hopefully, they’ll warm up together.

Jean wraps his arms around Marco’s neck and kisses him again, spreading his thighs wider and melting against him when Marco slips his tongue between his lips, gently coaxing him into a longer, deeper kiss. Even as chilled as both of them are, the contact feels so good that Jean can’t help but shift his hips slightly, already embarrassingly hard in his boxers.

When he feels Jean’s arousal rubbing against his stomach, Marco moans into the kiss, the sound soft and so pretty. He pulls away from Jean’s lips and moves instead to drag languid kisses along his throat. Jean swallows and leans his head back eagerly, shivering at the way Marco’s tongue feels on his flushed skin. Marco’s hands squeeze Jean’s waist briefly before he trails one of them between them, pressing his palm against Jean’s stomach for a moment and relishing his growing warmth. He drags his fingers down then, though, and wraps his hand as best he can around Jean through his boxers.

It’s such a simple touch, and one Jean has done for himself any number of times, but having Marco’s hand on him, on his cock, squeezing him carefully while he sucks a light mark into Jean’s throat... it’s almost overwhelming. Jean clings to him and moans his name, rocking up into his touch, his thighs already starting to tremble.

Below him, Marco is watching raptly, focusing all of his attention on Jean as he flushes and squirms in his lap, making all these cute noises for him.

When he buries his face in Jean’s neck again with a rough groan, the kisses he presses against his pulse are wet and god, _so_ warm.

“Th-that—” Jean starts, interrupting himself with a whimper when Marco swipes his thumb over the head of his cock through his underwear. “Fuck, Marco, that feels good...” Marco hums lowly in response, nuzzling his face into Jean’s throat. Jean wraps his arms tighter around Marco’s shoulders, his nails pressing into his skin, his breath panting out hot against Marco’s ear. 

Half out of curiosity, Jean slides one of his hands between them and spreads his fingers over Marco’s chest. He lingers there for a moment, only mostly distracted by the way Marco’s squeezing him, then drags his palm lower, toward his stomach. 

It seems like everywhere they touch, Marco’s taking in his heat, drinking it from him as willingly as Jean’s offering it. 

Looks like he’s just gonna have to touch Marco everywhere.

Jean sits back and pushes gently at Marco’s shoulders, biting his lip around a crooked smile. Marco blinks at him, but he lets Jean coax him into lying down again, his hands shifting once more to Jean’s slender waist.

“Hey, Marco,” Jean murmurs, dragging the tips of his fingers in slow, hot trails down Marco’s chest. “If I touch you in a weird way or whatever, say something, okay?” Marco just raises his eyebrows at him, so Jean flusters and turns away, his face a flushed, shy frown. “I just—I want you to feel good too. Help me out here.”

“O-oh.” Marco licks his lips, his thumbs dragging in soothing circles over the sharp points of Jean’s hipbones. “Yeah, okay. You too, yeah?”

Nodding quickly, Jean clears his throat and tries to center himself. He’s almost twenty, for god’s sake, virgin or not. In interest of giving himself something to focus on, Jean leans down against Marco and buries his face in his neck, nibbling gently along his collarbone. He doesn’t linger, though, choosing instead to drag his lips further down, onto Marco’s chest. Scooting back to give himself more room, Jean continues downward, breathing hot against the soft, flat plane of Marco’s stomach.

When he reaches up and gently brushes his hand over the front of Marco’s pants, Marco shudders under him and buries one of his hands in Jean’s tangled hair, careful not to pull on any knots. Emboldened, Jean hums against his skin, then rubs his palm more firmly against Marco, blinking up at him through his eyelashes just to see what kind of face he’s making.

It’s a pretty amazing face, in all honesty.

Marco had leaned up on his other elbow so he could look at Jean more easily. He’s watching him with dark, narrow eyes, that gaze sending a thrill of sparks running all through him. His lips are parted, too, and most certainly kiss-swollen, which only bodes well for Marco’s dick.

“H-have—” Marco cuts himself off with a little squeak when Jean drags his tongue along the trail of dark hair leading down into his pants. “Have you done this before?”

Jean raises an eyebrow at him, licking his lips and shaking his head. “Didn’t you know that already?”

Squirming slightly, Marco looks away and shakes his head. “I don’t know _everything._ I’ve heard college is pretty exciting.”

“Not for me,” Jean grumbles, burying his flushed face in Marco’s hip. “Not like that, anyway.” Marco hums, then pets Jean’s hair affectionately, brushing his bangs back off his face for him. Huffing quietly, Jean glances up at Marco again, then mumbles, “Thought about it, though...”

Marco bites his lip at that, his brow furrowing and his eyes going a little hazy. His hand tightens in Jean’s hair, then even more so when Jean leans down and rubs his cheek against Marco’s half-hard cock through his pants.

“Y-you—you thought about it before?” Jean stares up at him and nods, his flushed lips parting against the growing bulge in his pants. “With... with me?” 

Jean hums and nods again, then reaching up and slowly starts unbuttoning Marco’s pants. He moves tentatively, waiting to see if anything changes, but when Marco lifts his hips and starts pushing the loosened fabric down, Jean takes that as permission.

“With other people, too,” Jean says, glancing cautiously at Marco as he sits back on his heels. “I’m, um. Pretty bisexual.”

Marco sighs at that, his eyes fluttering closed like he doesn’t quite know what to do with this information. When he looks back up at him, though, he kind of looks like he wants to bend Jean over and have several different ways with him, so Jean counts it as a win. Duly encouraged, Jean pulls Marco’s zipper down, impatiently pulling his pants down and tossing them aside. 

The underwear Marco’s wearing is pretty cute. Bright red briefs, just tight enough that they leave almost nothing to the imagination, even though Marco’s only half hard.

Before he can move down again, Marco curls his fingers under Jean’s chin and pulls him into a hot, wet kiss, his lips and his tongue coaxing soft, breathy sounds out of him with ease. While he’s distracted, Marco reaches down and tugs him into his lap again, gently rocking them together through their underwear. He squeezes Jean’s warm hips, then slowly, cautiously starts moving his hands further down. 

When he finally wraps his fingers around Jean’s ass, his grip firm, appreciative, Jean shivers and lets out a pathetic-sounding whine against Marco’s lips. He doesn’t have time to be embarrassed by it, though, because Marco gives him a soft, breathy moan in response and _squeezes,_ and all Jean can do is tilt his head back and gasp.

Just as Marco goes to slide his hands into Jean’s boxers, trying to get a better hold on him, Jean bites his lip and reaches back to grab his wrist. Marco stops immediately, pulling back to glance up at him, ready to ask what’s wrong. Jean kisses him again before he can, sucking teasingly on his flushed lips for a moment, then lightly pushes him back down. He still wants something specific, after all.

Marco watches helplessly as Jean crawls down his body again, the journey quicker this time now that he can feel Marco’s skin heating up under his attention. He directs his attention back to the bulge of Marco’s arousal, much more apparent now that he’s harder, now that his pants aren’t in the way.

Licking his lips nervously, Jean glances up at Marco again, then fixes his gaze back on the waistband of Marco’s underwear.

“Jean, you don’t have to—”

“I want to,” Jean cuts in, his voice quiet. He rests his forehead against Marco’s stomach, curling his fingers into the hem of his briefs. “I’m just—I’m just nervous. Wanna do it right.”

Marco just gives him a choked hum, but he winds his fingers back into Jean’s hair, rubbing the tips of his fingers soothingly along his scalp. “It’s, um. It’s okay if you don’t like it.”

Jean looks back up at him, his eyes already shining like Marco had challenged him, a crooked smile taking over any nervousness still lingering on his flushed face. “We’ll see.” He sticks his tongue out slightly, then focuses on what he’s doing.

He pulls down the waist of Marco’s briefs and hums when his cock bounces out over them, long and uncut and honestly pretty damn appealing. Wrapping his hand around him, Jean gives him a slow, gentle stroke, watching his foreskin move with no small amount of interest. He’s cut himself, but his favorite kinds of internet dicks are the sloppy, wet ones with soft-looking foreskin, so Marco’s cock is an extremely welcome sight.

Marco’s hard now, but just the tiniest bit cooler than Jean would prefer, so he wastes no more time in getting to work.

When he drags his tongue slowly up the underside of Marco’s arousal, it coaxes an adorable, wavering little whimper out of him, his fingers twitching in Jean’s hair as his thighs spread further apart. Humming softly, Jean gives him another few languid strokes, then coaxes his foreskin back and wraps his lips around him.

The way Marco sounds is incredible, but the way he _tastes_ pretty quickly becomes one of Jean’s favorite things.

The precome pooling over his tongue is hot and slippery, and it tastes so clean, just salty enough that he can tell it’s there. Certainly better than Jean had hoped for. He moans softly around Marco’s cock, earning himself a pretty, broken-sounding sigh of his name. 

Rather than try to do anything too fancy, Jean just wraps his hand around the base and works his mouth carefully around the head, his brow furrowed in concentration. It’s enough, though, enough to have Marco breathing harder, restlessly petting Jean’s hair, his neck, his shoulders. He takes his time exploring Marco with his tongue, happily lavishing his attention upon areas that make him twitch and moan. 

Sometime during all this, Jean had melted onto his stomach sprawled across the dark bed, holding himself up on his elbows, and while he’s sucking Marco’s perfect cock, he can’t help but rub his own arousal against the sheets, searching desperately for friction. He can’t do that for long, though, because when he sucks Marco a little deeper and curls his tongue around him, the way Marco breathlessly stammers his name and rocks up into his mouth nearly makes Jean come right there. Pulling back and sucking in a deep breath, Jean wraps his hand around Marco and stares dazedly at him, then holds his gaze as he drags the flat of his tongue across the soaked head of Marco’s arousal.

“F-fuck, Jean,” Marco gasps, his hips rolling up again. He’s hot all over now, and trembling for Jean’s attention. Rather than push Jean’s head back down, Marco coaxes him up into his lap again, his hands immediately going back to Jean’s ass.

Jean buries his face in Marco’s hair and holds still while he’s tugging his boxers down, then melts against him again when Marco wraps his warm hand around him and squeezes. He uses his grip on Jean’s ass to guide him into a shallow rhythm, pressing his cock into Marco’s firm strokes and gasping out soft, pretty noises for him.

He’s barely even started when Jean chokes slightly, then reaches for Marco’s wrist again, his unsteady breath panting hot over Marco’s ear. “It’s—s-sorry, it’s so—” 

Humming soothingly, Marco pulls him close and wraps his arms around him again, sucking another mark under his collarbone while he steadies himself. Jean’s so sensitive, it’s crazy. Every time Marco touches him, every time he gives him that dark look, Jean immediately feels himself teetering on the edge. It makes him squirm a little. Marco doesn’t seem like he’s stretched that thin. Jean doesn’t want to come too fast, not the first time. He wants this to last, to be good for them both. 

He wants to make Marco come.

So while Marco’s holding him and letting him recover, Jean wiggles in his lap, then rocks himself down against him, letting Marco’s hard cock drag all along the join of his hip. It earns him a muffled, rumbling sound, those wide hands gripping Jean’s ass again, Marco’s breath stuttering so perfectly. 

“H-hold—hold on,” Marco murmurs, firmly pulling Jean down against his lap to keep him still. He leans back and reaches over in the dark, toward where the nightstand would be. To Jean’s horror, Marco easily picks out the half-full bottle of lube Jean has hidden in the drawer. The only way he’d know where it is, let alone well enough to find it blind, is if...

Marco sucks on his lips and flusters, soft pink dusting across his still-pale cheeks. “I didn’t—I didn’t watch. Or listen.” He swallows, then mumbles, “Well, I _tried_ not to listen.”

Groaning miserably, Jean hunches over and hides his face in Marco’s shoulder, trying to shrink into him. He knows for a fact that he’s noisy, no matter how hard he tries to hold it in. It’s always been a point of great annoyance for him. Now, though, knowing that Marco was there somewhere, that he _heard_ him...

Jean whimpers and rocks his hips again, his cock twitching between them.

With renewed determination, Marco wraps his arms around Jean and pops the cap on the lube, pouring a not insignificant amount of it into his palm. It spills out of his palm faster than he’d expected, so some of it splatters onto Jean’s lower back, down onto his ass. Jean squeaks and arches, his breath catching at the sensation, then again at the idea it puts in his head. Marco gives him a shaky, breathless moan, then sinks his teeth into Jean’s shoulder slightly to get himself together. 

He closes the cap on the lube and drops it, then brings his dripping hand between them, taking his time to carefully coat them both. Jean breathes a low moan and rocks forward, trembling at the way their cocks feel sliding against each other. 

When Marco wraps his hands around both of them, holding them tight together and stroking, Jean pants against his shoulder and drags his nails down his back, already right on the edge again. He doesn’t have the time to say anything, though, because Marco’s rubbing his thumbs over both their heads, twisting his wrist slightly, and that’s already more than Jean can handle.

Marco seems surprised by the sudden heat painted in stripes over his hands, up his chest, but he’s quickly distracted by the needy, embarrassing sound Jean makes as he comes. 

He watches Jean ride out his orgasm, rutting his hips into Marco’s grip, his flushed lips parted around tiny, desperate little gasps of his name, his head tilted back, eyes shut tight. It makes his own arousal twitch, but he can’t really think about his own pleasure when Jean’s writhing in his lap like this.

Jean comes down quickly, his breathing going steady again as his shoulders tense. Before he can say anything, or start feeling weird about it, Marco wraps his arms around him and pulls him close, rocking his aching arousal against his hip. 

“S-so beautiful, Jean,” he’s whispering, his voice trembling and reverent. “So pretty, feels so good. I—I wanna see you come again, please?”

“J-jeez,” Jean grumbles. He shivers when Marco keeps rubbing against him, his expression openly pleading, his hands gripping his narrow thighs firmly. Without even thinking about it, Jean nods dazedly, whimpering at the satisfaction that clouds over Marco’s mismatched eyes. 

Licking his lips slowly, Marco watches Jean twitch against him, then breathes, “Can I touch you more?”

His fingers travel up again, curving under Jean’s ass, but this time they’re slick and hot, the soft pads of two fingers cautiously brushing against his entrance. Arching his hips back for more, Jean moans shakily and nods again.

Marco rests his chin against Jean’s chest while he rubs soothing circles against him, taking his sweet time working his middle finger inside him. Jean somehow resists the urge to squirm in his lap. He decides instead to be as good as he possibly can, grateful to hand the lead to Marco for a while. It makes it easier to enjoy Marco’s hands on him, the finger slowly spreading him open, the way Marco’s breath feels huffing against his chest.

He’s already aching by the time Marco fits his finger in to the knuckle, thrusting it slowly to help him relax, so when Marco slides his other hand around toward his cock, he has to grab his wrist before he can even reach him.

Resting his forehead against Marco’s, Jean takes a deep, shaky breath, then whispers, “Not—not yet. Wanna... with you.”

Marco whines at that, nudging his nose against Jean’s, but he lets him guide his hand back to his ass. He focuses instead on the finger buried inside Jean, trying to angle it as best he can to make Jean feel good, and starts rubbing the tip of another finger against him. 

He holds Jean tight while he works him open on two fingers, groaning breathlessly when Jean starts rocking into him, grinding Marco’s wet cock all along his thigh, his hip. Leaning in close, Marco catches his parted lips in a loose, messy kiss, then buries his fingers deep and holds them there. Jean keeps moving without him, whimpering desperately against his lips when he ends up riding his fingers in quick, shallow thrusts.

Breathing a heavy, stuttering sigh of Marco’s name, Jean licks his lips and reaches between them. He’s quick to wrap his hand around Marco’s arousal, and as he tilts his head and deepens the kiss, he strokes Marco in time with the unsteady rhythm of his hips, as best he can manage.

Jean pants heavily between the parting of their lips, torn between speeding up the pace, or keeping it together until Marco comes too. 

The choice is about to be made for him, though. Even without Marco’s hand on him, even though his cock is resting too lightly on Marco’s stomach to do anything, Jean’s getting close again already. He thinks he might be able to come just from Marco’s fingers spreading him open, pressing deep inside him. 

As amazing as that sounds, he still wants to hear Marco begging for more.

He slows the pace of his hips, whimpering quietly as he eases himself back down from that edge. In the meantime, he keeps his steady rhythm stroking Marco off, making sure to twist his wrist and rub that soft spot beneath the head to get more noise out of him. He slips his tongue between Marco’s lips and arches against him, and just as he squeezes around Marco’s fingers and takes them deep again, Marco whines against him, his grip on Jean tightening.

As good as Marco’s fingers feel inside him, Jean can’t help but squirm nervously about moving further, especially with how big Marco feels rocking into his hand. He leans into Marco’s ear and moans for him, then whispers, “W-wanna get off like this.”

To his relief, Marco gasps against him and nods, taking over the rhythm of his fingers again. It’s almost unfair, how _good_ they feel curling and spreading inside him, how solid his arm feels where it’s wrapped around his hips. He goes to bury his face in Marco’s shoulder again, but Marco nudges him up before he can, almost desperately seeking his lips again. 

It’s when Marco angles his fingers more toward Jean’s stomach and snaps his wrist into him in a quick, steady rhythm that Jean loses it. He trembles and arches for him, gasping for air just to cry his name, a little louder each time until his brain shuts down and all he can do is moan. Marco wheezes out a broken whimper when he feels how _tight_ Jean is around his fingers, how tight he could be around his cock. Wanting to see Jean writhe and whine, Marco keep fucking him on his fingers through his orgasm, holding him still so he can move faster. 

Jean’s having trouble keeping his hand steady with the way Marco’s hips are bucking up into his shaky grip, but Marco’s so close just from watching Jean come again that it barely even matters. He’s still staring up at him when he comes, burying his fingers deep and clutching Jean to him, coming _hard_ against his hip and making an absolute mess of both of them.

Marco’s head is still in the clouds when Jean starts shifting in his lap, dragging his lips lazily across Jean’s bony chest. It had taken longer for Marco to get there, but Jean comes back down significantly faster, which allows him plenty of time to take in how adorably dopey his monster looks. 

Not that Jean can blame him; this might be the first time Marco’s gotten off in several decades.

Jean gently nudges Marco’s wrist so he can lift himself off his fingers, but otherwise he lets Marco enjoy his afterglow in peace. He occupies himself with playing with Marco’s hair, pressing soft, shy kisses against his temple. It feels nice to be held like this, Marco’s arms so warm and strong around him, but still so gentle.

There’s not any part of him that isn’t warm now, either. He’s even got color in a few places, which is a damn good look for him. Jean doubts he’s gonna have any problem keeping Marco this way, too.

Eventually they collapse onto the bed and Jean grumbles, then rolls over onto his back beside Marco. He picks up his discarded shirt and cleans himself up with it, yelping hoarsely when he feels how fucking cold and damp it still is. Making quick work of wiping them both down, Jean rolls back onto his side and huddles up to Marco again, humming contently when Marco shifts himself to wrap his arm around Jean’s shoulder.

They lie like that for a while, catching their breath and cooling down, before Jean’s regularly scheduled urge to ruin everything comes around again.

“This totally makes you a succubus, by the way. Grats on your promotion.”

His punishment is an extremely disgruntled whine and being firmly evicted to his own side of the bed, but it’s totally worth it for how cute Marco looks when he’s this flustered. Besides, he lets Jean back onto his side after a few pleas, even though half of them were trembling with laughter.

Jean snuggles up behind his monster and buries his face in his soft hair, wrapping his arms around him and holding him close, and when he takes a slow, content breath, he smells nothing but light summer rain.

**Author's Note:**

> (ps hey uh does it count as character death if marco was dead to begin with? >>)
> 
> i have a [tumblr](http://avoidingavoidance.tumblr.com) and a [twittr](http://twitter.com/gaarbage)


End file.
